Lets talk about COFFEE

[b1os]

Gotta live with the consequences.

But seriously, it's not that difficult. And I suppose you have three minutes in the morning, don't you?

 

[A Y]

Re. the pedigree of espresso in Breville, CoffeeGeek had a preview of the dual-boiler before it came out that talked about the development of the machine. It sounds pretty serious to me.

http://coffeegeek.com/proreviews/firstlook/brevilledualboiler

But my recent experience with a new coffee shop in town has led me to believe that the machine and all the attendant crazy rituals are pretty much secondary to the bean. If you have a good bean, that's like 80 percent of the fight right there. If you have a bad bean, nothing else you do down the line will make it better.

I logged all the espressos I had from a shop over a period of months, because I noticed that they were pretty inconsistent. In the end, it turned out that only 40 percent were acceptable. They had a LM GS5, Mazza grinders, plumbed-in double-osmosis filtered water, and the VST machined baskets. Some baristas were better than others (some were downright awful), but they all ground-to-order, dialed in the bean at least once every day, weighed stuff, preinfused, and were religious about their daily cleaning routine, so they were doing everything else right.

I'd found this ratio to be true for other good shops too (eg. Intelligentsia, other small boutique shops in other cities), and resigned myself to the fact that espresso is just hard to do consistently. But then a new shop opened up in town recently, and so far their hit rate (of the 10 or so shots I've had) have been 100 percent. Only 1 was anything less than excellent. They have a Strada, but aren't using any of its fancy features, and it's been consistent across the 4 baristas that have pulled shots for me. The shots have been both short and long in volume. I've got to conclude that this is probably due to using beans (Populace espresso blend) that are really well-suited for espresso that lets them get consistent, interesting shots every time.

I've found this to be true for the drip brew stuff at home, too.

 

[b1os]

If it only looked better...

But seriously, I have my doubts about the longevity of a dual boiler system with PID, pre infusion, wakeup timer for 1200$.

 

[A Y]

I was going through Sweet Maria's archives, and found this paper analyzing the genetic diversity of Arabica coffee being grown outside of Ethiopia. Beyond confirming that most of the coffee today doesn't have much genetic diversity, the paper has a useful history of coffee propagation outside of Ethiopia, and describes the relationships between most of the varietals today.

The paper: http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/12796/PDF (Hawaii as a center for coffee research, who knew?)

Most coffee in the world is derived from a couple of varietals (both quotes reformatted slightly to highlight important points):

The first migration of C. arabica was from Ethiopia to Yemen as part of the prehistoric trade.

The introduction of C. arabica to the other continents first occurred from Yemen to the Malabar coast of India, and from there to Ceylon and Java in the last decade of the 17th century.

A single C. arabica plant from Java was taken to and grown at the botanical garden of Amsterdam in 1706. Seedlings from this plant, subsequently named “Typica”, were brought to Martinique and from there to South America.

Other C. arabica materials collected by the French from Yemen were brought to Reunion (previously Bourbon Island) and from there also on to South America as the cultivar “Bourbon”. These introductions involved small numbers of plants that resulted in a narrow genetic base for arabica coffee cultivars cultivated worldwide (Ferwerda 1976).

What varietals we have outside of Ethiopia are mutations or hybridizations (sometimes accidental, sometimes intentional) of these few original exported varietals:

However, the differences between cultivars at the DNA level were as limited as the differences within each cultivar. This is because many of the established arabica cultivars originated from single gene mutations (Krug and Carvalho 1951) or hybrids of established arabica cultivars.

Typica is believed to be the primitive type of the species C. arabica, and Bourbon is very closely related to Typica.

The cultivar Caturra is named after the single dwarf mutant derived from the Bourbon stock in Brazil (Krug et al. 1949).

Mokka is derived from a complete recessive mutant laurina (lr) and an incomplete recessive mutant mokka (mo) with the double-mutant genotype lrlrmomo having small leaves, short internodes, a conical tree shape and the smallest seeds of any cultivar of C. arabica (Krug 1949; Carvalho et al. 1965).

Maragogipe is derived from a dominant mutant found on a plantation in Maragogipe county, Brazil, in 1870.

Yellow Catuai is a hybrid between Mundo Novo and Yellow Caturra that maintained the vigor of Mundo Novo and the dwarf gene Caturra (Bisco and Logan 1987).

Catimor is derived from a cross between Caturra and Hybido de Timor, while the latter is a hybrid between C. arabica and C. canephora (Bisco and Logan 1987). The close relationship of these cultivars resulted in the high degree of genetic similarity detected by the DNA markers.

The genetic diversity among examined arabica cultivars was small.

Beyond sustainability issues, I wonder how much this affects the taste and complexity of coffee.

In contrast, it's believed that Ethiopia has hundreds if not thousands of Arabica varietals, mostly unclassified beyond local descriptions like "That grove of trees over there by that hill."

 

[Despos]

...

On my third bag, would agree, very consistent. Reminds me a bit like the beans from Cafe Grumpy a couple years ago but smoother.

Don't know why it went sideways

 

[A Y]

I'm glad that's working out for you --- it inspired me to visit the shop that serves Populace and get a shot. They're still good!

I think the iPhone doesn't recognize whether it's in landscape or portrait mode when it's facing down, as it looks like your picture is shot from directly above the bag. I just tilt the phone up and let it get its orientation and then point it down again.

I've been drinking the Klatch Gesha, and it's very good and very intense in flavor, however, I think a good Ethiopian Yirgacheffe would come within 99% of it at 1/4 the cost.

Other news: I was in Peet's the other day, and it looks like the Ethiopian Supernatural is going to be out in less than 2 weeks! The last time they had this, it smelled like a chocolate chip blueberry muffin, and tasted like pure blueberries. It's definitely one of the more unique coffees they offer.

 

[patrickBOOTH]

I have had a lot of Ethiopean Yirgacheffe that had blueberry notes.

 

[indesertum]

Prolly cuz of the natural wash. Yirgacheff always smells like blueberry pie to me

 

[A Y]

The blueberry component is pretty damned strong in the Peet's. I get floral components from the YCs that I like, but that region is so diverse that it may be hard to make a generalization.

edit: I just saw that Supernatural is from Sidamo, which is known for coffees with blueberry flavors.

 

[indesertum]

Ay is such a coffee nerd. I need to read and drink more. There was a book you recommended a while ago about baristas and detailed discussions to prepare coffee. Do you remember what it was?

I ordered a pino recently. Should get here Friday. Also ordered a Gongfu teaset. I'm hoping my routine will be espresso at local coffee shop or aeropress in the morning, nice tea ceremony when I get home, and wine or beer with dinner in the evening maybe some scotch or bourbon as aperitif.

 

[A Y]

Are you thinking about Scott Rao's The Professional Barista's Handbook?

It has a lot of good information, but I've come around on the OCD preparation of coffee. I think it's necessary only if you have a less than excellent bean, and maybe espresso. Really good beans have such an interesting range of flavors that you can kind of screw up extraction a bit and you'll still get really good coffee. It's sort of like film with really wide latitude, if that makes any sense.

 

[johnapril]

http://www.mclaughlincoffee.com/

There used to be a corner in Berkeley where they'd brew you an individual cup, whatever bean you liked. I sold this stuff for 2 years post-MA and it nearly kept me in the Bay Area.

 

[A Y]

When I was in Berkeley a couple of weeks ago, a friend took me to Coles, which is near the intersection of College and Claremont. They will do the same thing too: pourover of any bean for a reasonable price. It was pretty good, and the pourover technique wasn't overwrought: put the grounds in, put all the water in, stir vigorously with a whisk, and you grab your cup when it's finished. There was so much tasty food in and around that area.

 

[b1os]

I feel so stupid. I finally found the problem why I couldn't produce any "latte art". I simply frothed 10-15% too much. Every day. Over the last months. ... Genius!

Now that the frothing works better and better (probably still a little much), I'm able to get some sort of "latte art". Still not good at all. Will have to watch some more YouTube guides. Anyway, very glad that it finally somewhat resembles latte art. Somewhat.
By now, I'm very happy with the consistency I can maintain when pulling espressi.

 

[VLSI]

Where is a good place to order some beans online? Just want something easy and relatively cheap. Thanks